World Cup already in Gatland's thoughts

All roads now lead to the Rugby World Cup according to Wales coach Warren Gatland as he prepares his side for the upcoming autumn internationals.

Wales host Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and South Africa next month before trying to improve on this year's third place in the 2015 RBS 6 Nations.

And Gatland is eager to use both campaigns as a building block for next year's World Cup where he insists Wales can make a realistic bid for their first title.

In their last Test, Wales suffered a heartbreaking 31-30 loss to South Africa at the Mbombela Stadium but with the Wallabies first up on the autumn docket, Gatland is adamant that his team are ready to put that behind them.

"We are definitely good enough to beat Australia," Gatland told the official WRU website. "It's just having the nous to close these games out, especially when we are in control and in the lead.

"During training we will be running lots of those scenarios as we want to go into the campaign fully prepared and ready to get the victories.

"We will meet up as a squad on October 27 for the autumn campaign and when they come into camp we will sit down and to talk to the players about the year ahead.

"We'll talk about how the World Cup should be seen as our Olympics and what we need to do to peak for the tournament.

"We have two campaigns together to prepare for the World Cup, where our target is to go in and win the tournament."

The story of the third round of the Women's Six Nations included one close and cagey encounter - as Ireland edged world champions England - and two decisive victories, with France putting Wales to the sword and Italy outclassing Scotland.